


Experiments

by deltachye



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, One Shot, Other, Reader-Insert, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:30:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8107813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [reader x tsukishima kei]"Maybe you’d rationalized it as an experiment, like all the other ones — question, hypothesis, method, and conclusion. You felt yourself smile angrily. Was that it? Was unrequited love merely a failed trial?Fine."





	

 

_often the people who are hardest to love  
are the ones who need it the most._

* * *

 

“ _Fine_!”

The word was spat out of your mouth like burning venom. Hot tears flooded your vision, blurring the cool outdoors, especially the tall boy standing in front of you. Your body shook with fury. The fibers in your being vibrated with a dangerous explosiveness, and every instinct you had told you to fight. But you held your ground and waited for a response.

Tsukishima stared at you with repulsiveness etched into his golden features. He shifted the bag on his shoulder before speaking lowly, his tone calm.

“I never asked you for anything. It’s your fault that you’re so pathetic.”

You closed your eyes at this statement, the cruelty crushing your heart with a deep ache. Sharp nails dug into your hand’s flesh in an attempt to anchor you into the world; a weak grab at staying sane.

“Screw you. Freak.” You turned heel and left, breaking off into a jog and then a sprint towards isolation.

The boy had been your only friend.

It wasn’t conventional. You were a pretty, smart girl, so it was almost guaranteed that you’d be popular. However, you ignored the friend requests and admiration. You immersed yourself so deeply into your study that you refused to see anything else besides anatomical drawings. Tsukishima: the mysterious, tall, genius that sat alone was the perfect fit for your selective company. He hardly said anything to you, and it was obvious that he appreciated your constant silence. It worked.

Later, when you finally looked up, you realized that he wasn’t just a figure to block the sun. His natural blonde locks and amber eyes were beautiful, especially in sunlight, which you had hardly ever saw because it strained your reading. You started talking to him more, and in return, made human connection. It wasn’t anywhere near perfect. He kept to insulting you, and you kept to returning the scathing remarks, until one of you got agitated enough to leave. It had never been bad enough that one refused to return, however, so it continued.

You looked behind you. It was reminiscent of your previous years of solitude — the only soul around was yours. The mountain city was quiet. You found a dry patch of grass and sat heavily, nestling your head in between your knees. You kept a tissue pressed to your eyes.

Tsukishima wasn’t easy to be with. His only other friend, a Yamaguchi, was able to deflect all of Kei’s negativity because of his own positivity. Opposites attract. You, however, were made of the same stuff as that freak — and you clashed. You had never expected it to boil over and explode.

_“I don’t care about you.”_

His words were so clear in your mind you turned around with a gasp, startled, but only a rabbit ran by. You hiccupped quietly and bent your head forwards again. Those were his words, the ones that set you off so intensely. Why?

You had resolved yourself to be so closed at a very young age. You dedicated yourself to a life of intellectual pursuit, so strongly that your only company was the animals you dissected. Your family was worthless. Your social stature was meaningless. So, when Tsukishima Kei had sat beside you once in math, you had no idea what to do. You could resolve third degree polynomials in a split second, you could calculate the zenith and distance of the nearest star in your head, but you couldn’t figure out how to say ‘hello’. He had understood. In fact, he got past just tolerating you to even appreciating you, to which you responded to equally. It was only fair.

Somewhere in the large brain of yours, it clicked. You cared.

That’s why, when you had kissed that freak, you were so hurt when he rejected you. You ran two fingers across your lips, perfectly kept, a faint ghost of his dry ones against the sensitive skin. You didn’t know why you kissed him. Maybe you’d rationalized it as an experiment, like all the other ones — question, hypothesis, method, and conclusion. You felt yourself smile angrily. Was that it? Was unrequited love merely a failed trial?

Fine.

You stood up and brushed clean your uniform of dirt and grass. The air was starting to bite, and the streetlights flickered to life, signaling your need to retreat home. It wasn’t a far walk from where you were now. You sped up into a brisk pace. Getting into bed seemed the most appealing thing to you. You rounded the cul-de-sac corner before completely stopping in your tracks, a foot already tensed to take the next step.

Tsukishima Kei sat on a hillside nook not unlike the one you’d just been in, his arms crossed and beautiful face buried within. You felt a bitterness rise up inside of you. Perhaps if you walked quickly enough, he wouldn’t notice… yet he suddenly looked up and turned, his gaze meeting yours. Surprise made his reddened eyes flash with recognition. You scowled, scolding yourself mentally in an effort to keep tears at bay. With his long legs, he made his way in front of you in a flash, and you were forced to confront your mess of a mistake.

“I’m sorry.”

You blinked a few times before your face contorted to caustic frown.

“Tsukishima Kei doesn’t apologize. You said what you wanted to say. It’s over. Move out of my way.”

He followed your movement to the right, his training in sport allowing him to block your escape routes. You saw tendons in his jaw twitch.

“I said, I’m _sorry_.” He was looking past you, his height making it easy to ignore you, but his hand twitched awkwardly at his side. You stared at it.

“You said you didn’t want me. I’m gone. Aren’t you happy yet?” The expulsion of words was an accident and you regretted saying them immediately, because it meant you were forced to stay and wait for a reply. You concentrated onto the distance as he was, focusing on your breathing, shallow and quick.

“No, I… I screwed up, all right? You threw me off with that.” You saw his head turn in your peripheral, and then those sharp eyes were staring at you. You swallowed thickly and brought yourself to meet his eyes. You couldn’t keep his gaze — it burnt, and tears scalded you — so you looked at the crack in the pavement.

“So?” you breathed. He was so damn close to you. You hated it. You wanted to be closer or nowhere near him.

“I need you.”

His voice croaked off into an embarrassingly high crack. He looked down at his enormous shoes immediately, his mouth set into a deep frown. You kept staring at him. Out of all outcomes, you could not have expected this. Tsukishima Kei _needing_ somebody? Him, cold as the moon, needed you.

“I — ”

“Please.”

He blurted this out in a hoarse whisper. His eyes were closed and you could hear his frantic prayers in your head, a mantra, of _please please please please please_. Or maybe it was your voice. The sun had almost set by now, the last traces of the day accentuated with orange and reds, so all you were faced with was a tall figure that blocked the sun.

“Fine.”

He looked up and you walked past him, bustling, shivering in the drafts the fall weather brought. You knew he could catch up. And when he did, you thrust your hand out, grasping onto his tightly.

There is more than one trial in an experiment.

**Author's Note:**

> (Read) Elsewhere: https://deltachye.tumblr.com/post/145592760621/experiments-t-reader-x-tsukishima-kei-maybe


End file.
